Tag Archives: dallas

Dallas-based Tech Wildcatters is set to launch their 2nd class and will stop accepting applications January 16th. Their inaugural class of 5 companies raised over $4,000,000 in funding through two venture and two angel rounds.

Tech Wildcatters is a startupaccelerator that offers up to $25,000 and 12 weeks of hands on mentorship. Here’s what they look for in a startup:

-B2B focus (i.e. the majority of your revenue needs to come from businesses)

-Ability for all founders to attend the 12 week program in Dallas

Semifinalists will be invited to Quick Pitch day in January where you will have the opportunity to learn more about the program and pitch to the entire mentor group. A community happy hour with Brad Feld will follow where he will be signing his book “Do More Faster”. Quick Pitch is a closed event.

Tech Wildcatters is looking to work with 7-10 companies in this class. And they plan to start having 2 classes per year.
Start here to apply.

Key Ring is a mobile app by Mobestream Media on both iPhone and Android that brings all your loyalty cards together. You use Key Ring to scan & store your existing loyalty cards, enroll in new loyalty programs, and access exclusive coupons and discounts.

This Dallas-based startup is looking for people to fill the following positions:

Startup Weekend Dallas is now a true global startup battle. The winning team from Dallas will go head-to-head against the winning teams from Beirut, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, New York, Portland, Seattle, Sofia, and Tulsa.

“On the weekends of November 12-14 and 19-21, hundreds of teams around the world will compete with one goal in mind: to dominate the competition, building a company from scratch in just a weekend. Participants converge as individuals on Friday evening, form teams around ideas, and build their products over the next 48 hours – culminating in pitching to a panel of expert judges on Sunday night.

What is Global Startup Battle?

Global Startup Battle is a global competition organized and supported by Startup Weekend, working in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week. The goal of the Battle is to create friendly competition among the attendees of Startup Weekend events and celebrate the awesomeness that is Global Entrepreneurship Week.

What makes Global Startup Battle a Global Competition?

All teams from the Startup Weekend events during Global Entrepreneurship Week (November 12-21) are invited (Dallas is one of these cities). Teams at Startup Weekend events will compete amongst themselves and a winner will be chosen at each event by a panel of judges. Once the local winner is decided, that team has 24 hours to create a 90-second video pitch and a 15-word description that explains what their startup is all about and why it rocks.

Once the videos are collected they will be posted on this site and we will open the floor for voting. Voting will be held on a global level and anyone who wants to vote can. (don’t forget to ask your friends and family to vote – didn’t Aunt Edna say she wanted to encourage your hobbies?)

The ultimate winner will be determined entirely by the open vote. The prizes up for grabs are pretty awesome – check out our Prizes page to learn more. In addition to the killer prizes, the winning team also gets bragging rights for an entire year, which sounds pretty sweet too.”

Just another reason why you should get tickets for Startup Weekend Dallas here.

More than 250 entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs and others interested in the Dallas/Fort Worth startup scene have RSVPed for the event.

Here are bios for the speaking lineup:

Blake Burris, Cohabitat
Blake is the founder of CoHabitat, a startup community and hacker co-working space that’s become a hub for startup entrepreneurs, developers, and creatives. Blake also founded Dynamo Labs, where he and his team develop solutions for the rapidly changing clean energy marketplace. Dynamo Labs was the first recipient of fbFund, a grant fund operated by the Founders Fund, Accel Partners, and Facebook. Blake has long been involved in the Dallas startup scene, having helped organize the first BarCamp Dallas in 2005.

Gabriella Draney, Tech Wildcatters
Gabriella is co-founder and managing partner of Tech Wildcatters, a Dallas-based seed accelerator. Previously, she was with HP Growth Partners, an early stage venture fund in Dallas. She co-founded an aircraft scheduling software company in 1998 that ended in a profitable exit. Gabriella went on to work for Morgan Stanley in private wealth management. True to her entrepreneurial roots, she left to follow her passion for nutrition by opening a specialty foods retail store, while simultaneously consulting with numerous Dallas-based startups on strategic planning and finance.

Danica Mathes, Ignite Dallas
Danica is an entertainment, intellectual property and new media attorney with Bell Nunnally & Martin LLP. She represents and counsels clients with respect to traditional trademark, copyright and other intellectual property protection and exploitation matters, preparation, review and negotiation of contracts, and formation of appropriate business entities. Danica was an adjunct professor of entertainment law at Washington University School of Law for five years, and she has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America since 2007. She is one of the inaugural organizers of Ignite Dallas and is actively involved with the Dallas International Film Festival.

Joey Pomerenke, Startup Weekend
Joey is an entrepreneur, startup enthusiast and travel junkie. He currently manages events for Startup Weekend, the Seattle-based non-profit organization that has become one of the leading catalysts for startup creation and entrepreneurship education in startup ecosystems around the world. Startup Weekend is currently represented in over 100 cities in more than 25 countries.

The first three Startup Happy Hour 2.0 events will be held Oct. 27, Nov. 24 and Dec. 22. The events will run from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., with speakers beginning at 6 p.m. The location is 8350 N. Central Expressway, Suite 250, in the north tower of Campbell Centre.

Startup Weekend Dallas 3 is set to take place November 12th-14th. Whether you have a full-time job or are a co-founder in a current startup, Startup Weekend Dallas 3 will be a great way to engage with the local startup scene.

The Event

Startup Weekend Dallas 3 will open Friday night with a presentation of new ideas for startup ventures. Pitch your own idea or simply watch and listen. Participants then choose their favorite ideas and form teams around them. The teams spend the weekend networking, developing, and building a proof of concept demo. Most ideas and projects are Web and tech-focused. On Sunday night, the teams will demo their projects to a group of panelists who will ultimately decide a winner.

Weekend Extras

During the weekend, there will be presentations from various members of the startup community. I’ll give a presentation on a few general aspects of startup law along with some tips of how to deal with the Dallas angel investor scene.
Tyler Koblasa, founder of Mingly and Startup Nights, will give a presentation about how he launched Mingly at Startup Weekend Los Angeles and continued to develop after his win. He’ll also talk about how he developed Startup Nights to keep the local startup scene momentum going between annual and semi-annual events like Startup Weekend.
Vijay Thakkar, Technical Director and Toy Maker at Newtoy Inc., will also be speaking Saturday night. Newtoy is a DFW-based company with the very famous Words With Friends and Chess With Friends applications for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch platforms.
Current prizes for the winning team include a one-month “Nomad” membership for 3 people from the winning team at CoHabitat, the coworking community in uptown Dallas. I’ll also include a startup incorporation package for the winning team. More extras, including additional presenters, prizes for the winning team, and event sponsors will be posted on the Startup Weekend Dallas 3 website.

Location
Startup Weekend Dallas 3 is being held at the brand new offices of ShopSavv) in the Campbell Centre at 8350 N. Central Expressway, Suite 250, Dallas, TX 75206. I got the grand tour of the new office space from Rylan last week and from what I saw the place is a legit startup heaven:

Buy Your Tickets

Tickets to participate in Startup Weekend Dallas 3 are $75 ($40 if you are a student) and can be purchased at dallas.startupweekend.org/tickets. Please note that meals are included with your ticket price!

About Startup WeekendStartup Weekend is non-profit organization based out of Seattle, Wash., Startup Weekend’s primary mission is to provide unparalleled experiential education opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs around the globe. Its model is event-based, community-focused, interactive and results-driven entrepreneurial development. As a result, Startup Weekend has become one of the leading catalysts for startup creation and entrepreneurship education in startup ecosystems around the world. Startup Weekend is currently represented in over 100 cities in more than 25 countries. Learn more at http://startupweekend.org.

With the success of Y Combinator and TechStars, several accelerators have popped up everywhere. Some have done quite well. Here in Dallas,Tech Wildcatters had a strong class recently and is poised to be around for awhile. They key for each is good programming and good accelerator mentors.

But this morning I read a Dallas Business Journal article that I found amusing: A new accelerator is planning to invest $200,000 and provide up to 45,000 square feet of office space to about 10 mobile app startups in exchange for 15-20% equity in each startup.

That’s almost a negative pre-money!

That’s $20,000 per startup for a 15%-20% equity stake. Pretty expensive seed capital. Good luck trying to convince even the most nascent of startups to take your investment at around a $100k post-money valuation. Furthermore, the $20k is more like a living stipend than something the mobile startup deploys for development, etc.

Office space is great but not a deal maker alone

Office space is a nice kicker, but no entrepreneur is going to give up equity in their mobile app startup company for office space. Let me put this another way: No entrepreneur worth investing $20,000 in is going to take up an office space-for-equity offer. How much office space does a 2-3 person mobile app startup really need? Not much and they’ll likely office at a coffee shop, their own residence(s), or a local coworking facility. And more than likely all 3 places. The article mentions:

The accelerator’s space-for-equity approach is similar to the tactics some North Texas building owners used during the tech/telecom boom and bust of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Partying like it’s 1999 is one thing — running a 2010 accelerator like it’s 1999 is probably not a great idea.

Accelerator Mentors are Huge

Accelerator Mentors are so important. And it is missing, at least for now, from the model. One of the 2 partners plans to provide personal mentorship. Regardless of how well the partner can provide mentorship, it falls way short of the roster of mentors provided by typical accelerators.

Whenever a client discusses with me whether they should join an accelerator, the decision always comes down to the quality of the accelerator mentors. Startups don’t evaluate their participation in an accelerator by asking “Is the $20k worth the equity given up to the accelerator?” Rather, startups ask “is the access to the accelerator mentors worth the equity given up to the accelerator?”

In the case of the planned accelerator, mobile app startups will be deciding “Is the mentorship from this one person worth 15%-20% of my startup?” That’s a tall order for the accelerator.

I wish the accelerator the best of luck — I just doubt they understand what technology startups desire and value from an accelerator.

Idea Week is a grassroots effort by the producers of TEDxSMU and some of Dallas’ leading social enterprises and individuals to showcase some of the most new and exciting conversations occurring in Dallas.

Designed to extend the TED experience and philosophy of spreading ideas worth sharing, Idea Week features more than 25 events, most of which are free and open to the public or streamed live online, as a lead-in to the second annual TEDxSMU. Idea Week’s inaugural year is 2010. An event of this magnitude being conceived and launched within three months on a $1,000 budget lives its own mission to reflect a new order of thinking and doing.

The Dallas Startup Happy Hour is the talk of the startup community in Dallas. Check out the coverage in the Dallas Morning News here: http://bit.ly/aKTJDq As a result of the events, several startups have found a) employees, b) co-founders, c) angel investors and d) had a few free drinks.

Who: This event is open to all DFW area startup founders, startup employees, investors, people thinking about doing a startup, etc. As a courtesy to everyone in attendance, we ask service providers to not just show up to pitch their services.

The official Dallas Startup Weekend 2 pre-party is at CoHabitat, a coworking facility located in Uptown Dallas. Register for the pre-party here (it’s free, but let’s give Cohabitat an estimated head count). Cohabitat is located at 2517 Thomas Avenue, Dallas, Tx 75201. Pre-Party starts at 6pm on Thursday April 15. Please note that CoHabitat’s only dress code is no suits.

I’m excited to head out to L.A. as I am a Trojan, grew up in SoCal, and spent plenty of time courting my better half in Santa Monica. Also, my college roommate will be participating so I’ll get to see if he learned anything from all his computer science books that served as decorations, doorstops, and furniture at our apartment.

I had a chance to meet up with Clint Nelson, one-half of the Startup Weekend full-time partners, this past week when he stopped in Dallas on his way down to SXSW. He and I were both shocked that Startup Weekend Dallas 2 is only a month away (April 16th to the 18th).

If you are a participant in the startup community, you should attend Startup Weekend. No excuses. Buy Your Tickets Here.

Check out the video recap from Startup Weekend Dallas 1, which took place in November 2009: